Helping Students Develop a High View of Scripture
I’m sure that your student ministry is perfect and all of you students bring their Bible to your small groups, large group and everything in between. It’s highly likely that in a student ministry like yours, you never take a box of Bibles to your camp or retreat because of the amount of students that forget them. Because of these previous statements, you probably can’t relate to my experience in regards to your students view of scripture either, so this will simply be an encouragement to me.
Hopefully, you picked up on my sarcasm and you will continue to read the rest of this post.
One thing that I have yet to figure out is why students don’t bring a Bible to the place where the main thing they need is a Bible. For me in my small group it is a constant battle, but it is a battle that must be fought. One of the greatest battles we as student ministry leaders must fight is battle to develop in our students a high view of scripture. Across America teenagers are developing a worldview that sees scripture in a take it or leave it light. They don’t think it applies to them and what does apply to them they think hinders them from living the lifestyle they want to live. Students have developed a low view of scripture and while this view may cause minimal damage in their youth, the damage that will be caused later will be catastrophic.
Recently, in a small group lesson I prepared we studied 2 Timothy 3:10-17. Verses 16 & 17 says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” If all of scripture is breathed by God and as a Christian I have submitted to God as the Lord of my life then shouldn’t I take His words to me seriously? The obvious answer is yes, yet this is not so obvious to the next generation. As we see Paul say to Timothy,, we must say and teach to our students: The Bible is God breathed, therefore it is Holy.
The Bible is something I can use in my life to teach me, correct me and train me to bring Glory to God. The Bible is something that as I read it helps me for my future. The questions students have about scripture are valid and we as the leaders must help them wrestle and answer those questions by using the Bible. As youth ministry leaders we must realize the essential need to help students develop a high view of Scripture. It is God’s word to us, my Pastor says this, “You read this book, you hear His voice.” The Bible is a Holy book and it should be treated as such. Students may not know how to treat a book as Holy so they must see it modeled in us. Through a series of blog posts we are going to discuss some different ways to help your students develop a high view scripture.
In this post we are going to discuss the need for you, as the youth leader, to bring and use your Bible. So much in this world is caught more than taught, so we must realize how important it is for students to see us not only have our Bible but use our Bible as well. Phone apps are incredible and so are tablets, but the Bible app is not the only app on your phone. Your phone has messaging, social media, internet browsing and other things that have the ability to distract you from the Bible app you have great intentions to use. This is true even more so for your students, in an age of technology the anti-spiritual noise that can be created by a smart phone is deafening. In my class I have a strict no phone policy for Bibles, when we begin our lesson the phones go up and the Bible’s come out, whether its a Bible from home or an extra we have for our class, each student uses a physical Bible every single week. We even do this in our Wednesday night gathering, each week we have a group of students that take a stack of Bibles and hands them out to the students that didn’t bring one or don’t have one. We do this because we believe that helping students see the words on a page and taking the distraction of their phone away for just a few minutes can have a major impact on what they hear from the message or lesson.
We do these things because we believe in the importance of students viewing scripture as “God breathed”. I must show them the value I have for it in my life and model what I would like to see from them by bringing my Bible each week and as I bring it, show them that I use it. Taking this step is a small step but one that could prove crucial for your students and their current as well as their future view of God’s Word.
- Neal Dose